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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Are Zombies Real or Pretend?

Dylan loves Michael Jackson. He’s particularly fond of Thriller, both the song and the video. He asked to watch it the other day and I said no because it has zombies. He described the video in some detail, even imitating the dances. Obviously he’d seen it before. I knew he wasn’t afraid of anything, except zombies, vampires, the dark, monsters, Moo Cat (sometimes), windows without blinds in them, banshees, being alone, needles, nightmares (that’s fear of having one, not an actual nightmare), loud noises, his large stuffed animals if they’re left on the bed at night, and having splinters removed. We decided to watch it together.

“Are werewolves real?” Dylan asked.

“No,” I told him.

“That’s Michael Jackson,” he told me.

“Uh huh,” I said. Translation: You were negative twenty-one when this came out, kid, shut up.

“He turns into a werewolf, but not really.”

"Yeah."

Adults see special effects in their infancy; a 6-year-old sees terror.

When Michael Jackson and Ola Ray leave the theater, a voice comes from the background. Someone in the movie they're leaving reads a phrase written in blood: “See You Next Wednesday.” Not wanting to be outdone in my knowledge of the Thriller video, I told Dylan that director John Landis puts that phrase in all of his movies. Dylan was not impressed.

[Side note: I didn’t need to Google the name of the actress who played Michael Jackson’s girlfriend. At eleven years old I didn’t know why I thought so highly of her, but I knew it had to be something special. Special enough for her name to stick all this time.]

“Are zombies real, or fake?” Dylan asked later.

“What do you think?” I non-answered.

He watched the screen for a moment.

“Fake,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Those are zombies.” He pointed.

“No, those are dancers wearing zombie makeup,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Michael Jackson is wearing makeup. The rest of them are zombies.”

“No, they’re all wearing makeup,” I said, “because there’s no such thing as zombies, remember?”

“Oh.” The way he said oh, I knew he didn’t understand. Zombies are fake, but this one time Michael Jackson danced with some for a video. Or zombies are real, but the Thriller zombies are pretend. Or Zombies are fake, but there are real zombies in movies.

“Those are all dancers,” I said. “They all got put in makeup, just like Michael Jackson.”